Pity poor Amit Shah, BJP President, as
karyakartas and disappointed ticket-seekers raise slogans against him and lay siege to the party offices in Delhi and Lucknow, calling him the "messiah of the turncoats''.
If seeing his effigies being burnt was not bad enough, Shah has a giant, Yogi Adityanath-sized migraine to now contend with. As exclusively
reported by this writer, the livid
mahant (priest) of the Goraknath Math, furious at not being declared the BJP's Chief Ministerial candidate, got his outfit, the Hindu Yuva Vahini, set up as a youth group, to declare candidates for six seats where Adityanath holds sway.
His HYV, which has virtually sprung as a parallel to the RSS and BJP in critical Eastern UP, will contest from 64 seats. And plans to contest from all UP seats to avenge the insult to its founder Adityanath.
"The people of UP wanted Adityanath
ji to be declared Chief Ministerial candidate but the BJP ignored him. It also did not include him in its central election committee," said Sunil Singh, state president of the YHV.
Adityanath, a five-term MP, has been seething for a while now. He was not made a minister despite repeated promises and now feels he is being cut to size by Shah who has not given tickets to any of the candidates on his list.
The timing of his rebellion is tactical when Shah is already under attack for accommodating "turncoats'' - defectors from other parties - and allowing "dynasty
raj'' for the first time in the cadre-based BJP. Tickets to Rajnath Singh's son Pankaj, Kalyan Singh's grandson while his son is already a party MP, and a host of relatives of heavyweight leaders despite Narendra Modi's claim that leaders should not ask for tickets for relatives has not gone down well with the party.
"BJP, Congress aur SP mein kya farak reh gaya hai. Sab toh VIP rishtedaro ki party hain. Bahut baat karte hain chaal, charitra, chehra. Asliyat kuch aur hai'' (whether it is BJP, Congress or Samajwadi Party, they are all parties of VIP relatives. They talk of merit. But that is not the reality), says an angry ticket-seeker at the BJP office in Delhi.
After hearing about the HYV's "list'', a desperate Shah tried to contact Adityanath who has gone incommunicado, but was told he was doing
"maun tapasya'' (meditating and praying in silence).
Adityanath's "main" is making Shah jittery because he is the undisputed strong man of Eastern UP and is not know to listen to "advice'' from those his camp dismiss contemptuously as "outsiders" in a reference to Shah.
Ticket distribution has become such a contentious issue for the BJP that after two meetings where Rajnath Singh lost his cool to ensure a ticket for his son, they have been abruptly wound up - a first in the BJP. An executive diktat was issued that Shah would take decisions on all the tickets that remained, setting off the in-house rebellion.
The BJP, which is a cadre-based party is chafing at the high-command culture imposed by the all-powerful duo of Shah and Modi. Earlier, say leaders, ticket distribution used to be a transparent democratic affair. No longer. Irate workers even burnt effigies of Union Minister Smriti Irani In Amethi for the nomination of Uma Shankar Pandey who is learnt to be close to her. This kind of open rebellion is something not witnessed this far in the era of Modi and Shah, who run the party with an iron hand.
While leaders who have a lot at stake are quiet, the workers are giving vent to their feelings. Varun Gandhi, a young and popular leader, who had earlier declined to campaign outside his constituency of Sultanpur and has been left out of the list of star campaigners is maintaining an ominous silence. Workers loyal to Gandhi are muttering about "Insult after insult to our leader. How long can he carry on his quiet
tapasaya (contemplation)?" says one. Gandhi, who has raised funds of his own to build houses for the poorest people in his district, is appreciated for being a doer. And, Shah and Modi's sidelining of him has not gone down well with the people of Sultanpur.
While leaders within the BJP want Shah to pay for his arrogance, the Jats of Western UP are livid with the BJP for not living up to its promises of including them in reservation quotas and the effect of
note bandi. The primarily agrarian economy has collapsed and rural distress is evident. Prices of the crops harvested has crashed and the Jats promise to stop the BJP's
"hookah paani" (social boycott). Khap after Khap in UP is giving calls to boycott the BJP and vote for any other party. This has the SP, Congress and BSP rushing leaders to Western UP to cash in. Mayawati, whose campaign has been the most under-reported so far, is confident of making in-roads in the region. Ground reports also indicate that the BJP, which swept the region in 2014, is having a rocky run. The "Hindutva heroes'' of Muzaffarnagar are not even being giving a hearing, so intense is the Jat anger.
For Shah and Modi, who still seem to have the advantage in UP, this election is crucial because if they win, their position will be unassailable within the party; secondly, it will give Modi huge traction for the 2019 general election against all rivals within and without. A loss in UP will be squarely laid at their door and both the party and the wider Sangh will demand an accounting.
Paradoxically while Modi remains popular without the kind of anger that people had against UPA 2, his ability to swing UP, which he managed for the BJP in 2014 is now in question. People no longer believe that "pressing a button will get them Modi and good governance'' which he had promised. Shah is a battle-hardened campaigner but UP could be his biggest test.
(Swati Chaturvedi is an author and a journalist who has worked with The Indian Express, The Statesman and The Hindustan Times.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.